1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to liquid containers that store liquid to be supplied to liquid ejecting apparatuses.
2. Related Art
Examples of liquid containers to be mounted in liquid ejecting apparatuses include ink cartridges to be mounted in ink jet printers. In particular, ink cartridges having ink sensors that detect the amount of ink stored therein are practically in use. In general, an ink sensor detects whether or not ink is present in a sensor chamber communicating with an ink storage section. Specifically, the ink sensor detects the presence/absence of ink on the basis of physical properties of ink, or liquid, and air: for example, the difference in vibration frequency specific to a system including the sensor chamber. This leads to a problem that, if bubbles are contained in the ink in the sensor chamber, detection accuracy may be deteriorated. To solve this problem, JP-A-2008-44195 discloses an exemplary technique in which a bubble-trapping chamber and a maze-like flow path are provided between the sensor chamber and the ink storage section, whereby entry of bubbles into the sensor chamber is suppressed.
In the known technique, however, the bubble-trapping chamber and the ink storage section communicate with each other merely through the maze-like flow path. Therefore, other problems still remain: generation of bubbles when remaining ink is drawn from the ink storage section, and accumulation of bubbles moving from the maze-like flow path into the bubble-trapping chamber. These problems often occur particularly when there still remains a small amount of ink, and lead to misdetection of the amount of ink due to bubbles drawn into the sensor chamber.
The foregoing problems do not only apply to ink cartridges but are common to various liquid containers that are used for supplying liquid to liquid ejecting apparatuses, such as liquid containers that supply liquid materials containing metal to ejection apparatuses that eject the liquid materials onto semiconductors so as to form electrode layers.